


Family Secrets

by Palpalou



Series: Cold And Soft As Satin [3]
Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-19 01:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22803019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palpalou/pseuds/Palpalou
Summary: Post Caesar's assasination, post Brutus' exile, Antony learns some things.
Relationships: Mark Antony & Julius Caesar, Mark Antony/Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, Posca & Julius Caesar
Series: Cold And Soft As Satin [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1519721
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Family Secrets

Of all the things Caesar didn’t leave him, Posca was one Antony had never coveted. And yet, the portly little Greek had attached himself to his side – without Antony having to swindle or bully him off Octavian.

Well, he had been made a freedman, apparently, so he was at liberty to do as he wanted, and it seemed what he wanted was to be a fly in Antony’s ear. He would have been flattered, really, except he couldn’t stand the man. And even Pompey’s house wasn’t large enough to escape him.

“Oh, is that where it has been all this time?”

Antony should have kept his mouth shut. If only because of Posca’s calculating side-eye, as if he couldn’t read the sly little man. But Antony never left well enough alone, when it came to Brutus. And it was Brutus’ head – well, the sculpture of Brutus’ head – which Posca was making a show of considering.

He had had it fixed, at some point, with iron staples which held both halves together, but the worker hadn’t managed to fit them back perfectly. Strangely, the slight skew of the features made it seem more organic, like it was permanently on the verge of an expression which never came. When Antony had seen Brutus sitting on the senate floor, face wet and hands bloody, he had looked the same.

Months had passed since that day. Close to a year, in fact. They had recently held special celebrations to honour the memory of Caesar during the Parentalia festival. It had been pompous and overblown and the people had loved it. Antony didn’t even get to get himself properly soused for it, because now he was the master of Rome and it meant if he didn’t take care he would find himself floating face down in the Tiber. His true drinking had to be done in private. It was less fun, but drinking had started getting more about the sleeping afterwards than the debauchery anyway. Maybe that was a sign he was getting older.

“What do you know about that?”

“Oh, not much. It was Caesar’s, you see, so I’m surprised to find it there.” He sent him a look. “In Pompey’s house.”

Antony grimaced at him. He had kept most of Pompey’s furniture when he had moved in, and it was mostly still there, except for what had had to be replaced through the years, and a few pieces he had given away or sold off. But it was obvious Posca didn’t think this was a left-over from Pompey’s time.

Posca continued. “I remember when it disappeared. Well. I half-thought he had it destroyed. Although he had a few slave whipped quite severely for being unable to produce it.”

Antony remembered it quite well, although he couldn’t care less about a few slaves getting punished. He lived in Caesar’s house then, although it was around that time he had left, Caesar washing his hands of him after a bout of his bad behaviour. His mother had never forgiven him for it. And of course, he was the one who had taken the bust. Now that he thought about it, he wondered whether Caesar’s foul mood had been caused by the disappearance, or whether it was only his memory that brought the two events together.

“Why did Caesar have it in the first place?”

Posca took on a thoughtful mien.

“He had it made as a gift for his mother, I think. Her son’s likeness... It was before she remarried. Who knew where it might have led? But he didn’t give it to her in the end. He thought it looked too much like him.”

Antony raised an eyebrow.

“Like Brutus? I should hope so.”

“No, like _him_. Like Caesar. He didn’t want to give proof to the rumour he and Servilia of the Junii had cuckolded her previous husband.”

Antony stayed silent for several seconds.

“…But it _doesn’t_ look like him.”

A strange look crossed Posca’s face, and it came to Antony, in an unwelcome moment of clarity, that, very probably, nobody had known or loved Caesar better than the oily little man.

“No. I didn’t think so either.”

“…Fuck.”

Antony was prompt to anger. He knew it, and he didn’t see it as a flaw. He was also aware that, when it came to Brutus, his anger had always been short-lived, quickly stifled under the weight of other sentiments.

It’s what had allowed their affair to continue for so long; even when Brutus was haughty at the worst moments. Or towards the end, when his eyes had grown opaque and he couldn’t be found but in the company of whisperers, and yet he would come to Antony’s bed and Antony’s irritation would go away like a mantle slipping off his back and he was fourteen again and free to love as recklessly and indiscriminately as a child.

Barely one month after having forced Brutus out of Rome, still wearing grieving garments for Caesar, he had already been finding himself thinking about the next time they would meet. Not right away. Brutus could never come back to Rome, and it would have been the height of foolishness for Antony to abandon it then – or now. But in his mind’s eye, he had seen himself on one of those grand diplomatic voyages like Caesar used to make. Reminding his allies of the munificence and might of Rome, and making a discrete detour. He didn’t doubt Brutus would have him – it never served to doubt.

But to have Brutus betray a man he professed to love like a father had been one thing. The thought of Caesar massacred by someone whom he had truly thought of as his son had an altogether more bitter taste. Antony choked on it, physically, retching out several more curses.

Posca hadn't moved, a prudent few steps away.

“…Need a drink?”

“Yes, I rather do, actually.”

“Well… I know where Caesar keeps – kept his best wine. It’s not far.”

Indeed, it wasn’t far. A cellar a few houses down the street, and a few minutes digging out the amphorae. Maybe it had amused Caesar to know a gateway to death by poison was kept so close to his old enemy.

Posca hadn’t lied. It was really good wine, sweet and heady. Antony was warm with it in the space of a few drinks.

“You know, there was a time when I thought Caesar would adopt me. I’d forgotten that completely. I thought – that’s the first thing I thought, when I saw that bust. That he wanted a son. Ha!”

“It is rather funny.”

“Yes, because… he’s… Pater patria. But, uh… He’s never had a child.”

“He does have a son.”

“Does he? No…”

“With the Egyptian Queen. Caesarion, her son is called.”

“Oh, yes! Well... he never brought him to Rome, so…” He waved his cup around eloquently.

Posca huffed a laugh and poured him some more wine. With torches the only source of light in the underground darkness, it took on a mesmerising golden shine.

“So,” mused Posca. “Were you jealous of Brutus?”

Antony squinted.

“I was never jealous of him.”

“Hmm.”

Antony’s vision was swimming along the edges, but it seemed to him like Posca was looking very intent.

“You know, Caesar had me write a number of his wills along the years.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Not the last one, though. It was of his own hand.” He snorted. “If he’d died three years before, Brutus would have inherited a big chunk of what Octavius got…”

Antony groaned, but Posca wasn’t finished.

“…you were never in any of those wills, though.”

He grimaced.

“Well, I didn’t lose anything, then. Bottoms up-”

But when Antony tried to raise his cup, it fell out of his hand and spilled on the floor. He squinted at the dark stain the liquid had made where it was absorbed by the dirt floor. Insobriety was like gauze around his head. He hadn’t drunk that much, had he?

Posca came to kneel by the place where he was sprawled against the wall of the cellar. It put their faces level.

“Caesar did think you were jealous of each other, you know. He tried to avoid having you in the same room when he could. You would always get obnoxious … and Brutus even more fractious. But you tell me now it wasn't envy. Why do you have that bust, Antony?”

He didn’t intend to respond, but the wine had loosened his tongue and he found himself speaking nearly without wanting to.

“I took it because I wanted – it. I deserved it.”

“It? Oh. You mean - him.” Posca blinked. “Oh, you were lovers.”

This time, he stayed silent. It was true, in a sense, and yet Posca couldn’t know how his affair with Brutus felt more like grasping crumbs than a feast. Or maybe he could. There was a knowing gleam in his eye, although shadows seemed to pool in the hollows of his face and lap at the light.

After a moment, he started again.

"Did you ever meet his mother? Before?"

"Must have."

"But you never talked, I think."

He frowned. He never had to, come to think of it. Not even now she was his hostage. She kept herself in her great fancy house and he left her to her own devices and Atia's vindictive watch.

"It's not surprising. I don't think she talked to a great deal of people. Are you still in contact with Brutus?"

"'Course not."

"Of course not", he repeated softly.Then he took a small pewter flask out of a fold in his toga.

“I have one last question for you, and you’ll answer truthfully. On the day of the Ides, why weren’t you on the Senate floor with Caesar?”

Antony’s tongue felt too thick for his mouth but that didn't keep words from trickling out of him.

“'S like I said...Trebonius took me aside. And then I couldn’t enter because of the fool senators running away'nd then... it was too late.”

After a few seconds of intense scrutiny, Posca seemed to sag back.

“We’re all fools, I think. You, me, and Caesar… Here, drink this.” He put the flask against Antony’s mouth. He tried to wave him away but his arm felt too heavy.

“I don’t want to drink anymore...”

“You’ll drink this, or you won’t wake up tomorrow.”

So he drank.

“You won’t remember much of this, you know, but I’ll tell you anyway in case it sticks. You should get rid of that bust.”

“I know”, said Antony. He was starting to feel nauseous, but his mind was strangely clear. “But I won’t.”

Posca’s face showed no surprise.

The day after, Antony woke up late, with dried vomit around his mouth, the mother of all headaches, and Brutus' stone head on the pillow next to him, which nearly had him falling out of bed.

He abstained for a few days after that, his memory hazy but with an undefined certainty that he had danced on a very narrow edge. He also resolved not to drink with Posca anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> *I know nothing about wine & wine conservation in ancient Rome


End file.
